Thursday, February 20, 2014

Conversations on Twitter create networks with identifiable contours as
people reply to and mention one another in their tweets. These
conversational structures differ, depending on the subject and the
people driving the conversation. Six structures are regularly observed:
divided, unified, fragmented, clustered, and inward and outward hub and
spoke structures. These are created as individuals choose whom to reply
to or mention in their Twitter messages and the structures tell a story
about the nature of the conversation.

The Polarized Crowd network structure is only one of several different
ways that crowds and conversations can take shape on Twitter. There are
at least six distinctive structures of social media crowds which form
depending on the subject being discussed, the information sources being
cited, the social networks of the people talking about the subject, and
the leaders of the conversation. Each has a different social structure
and shape: divided, unified, fragmented, clustered, and inward and
outward hub and spokes.

Being deployed to a war zone can result in
numerous adverse psychological health conditions. It is well documented
in the literature that there are high rates of psychological disorders
among military personnel serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in
Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq as well as among the
service members' families. For service members' families, the degree of
hardship and negative consequences rises with the amount of the service
members' exposure to traumatic or life-altering experiences. Adult and
child members of the families of service members who experience wartime
deployments have been found to be at increased risk for symptoms of psychological disorders and to be more likely to use mental health services.
In an effort to provide early
recognition and early intervention that meet the psychological health
needs of service members and their families, DOD currently screens for
many of these conditions at numerous points during the military life
cycle, and it is implementing structural interventions that support the
improved integration of military line personnel, non-medical caregivers,
and clinicians, such as RESPECT-Mil (Re-engineering Systems of Primary
Care Treatment in the Military), embedded mental health providers, and
the Patient-Centered Medical Home.Preventing Psychological Disorders in Service Members and Their Families
evaluates risk and protective factors in military and family
populations and suggests that prevention strategies are needed at
multiple levels - individual, interpersonal, institutional, community,
and societal - in order to address the influence that these factors have
on psychological health. This report reviews and critiques
reintegration programs and prevention strategies for PTSD, depression,
recovery support, and prevention of substance abuse, suicide, and
interpersonal violence.

This is a course for educators who want to learn about US copyright
law in the education context. P2PU also offers a similar courses for
Australia, if that content is more appropriate. Educators who are not
in the US are welcome to sign up, too, if they want to learn about
copyright law in the US.

The course is taught around practical case studies faced by teachers
when using copyright material in their day-to-day teaching. By
answering the case scenarios and drafting and discussing the answers in
groups, you and other participants will learn:

What is the public domain?

What does copyright law protect?

What is fair use?

What other exceptions are there in copyright law?

What are open access educational resources?

Goals
By the end of this course, you should be able to:

Understand the basic concepts of copyright law;

Identify copyright issues in education;

Understand when fair use or other copyright exceptions apply to teacher, librarian, or student use of copyrighted content; and

Strategize and talk with your students, peers, and administrators about how to use copyright exceptions in education.

The most direct way in which climate change is expected to affect public health relates to changes in mortality rates associated with exposure to ambient temperature. Many countries worldwide experience annual heat-related and cold-related deaths associated with current weather patterns. Future changes in climate may alter such risks. Estimates of the likely future health impacts of such changes are needed to inform public health policy on climate change in the UK and elsewhere.

Abstract:
Several Internet interventions have been developed and tested for common mental disorders, and the evidence to date shows that these treatments often result in similar outcomes as in face-to-face psychotherapy and that they are cost-effective. In this paper, we first review the pros and cons of how participants in Internet treatment trials have been recruited. We then comment on the assessment procedures often involved in Internet interventions and conclude that, while online questionnaires yield robust results, diagnoses cannot be determined without any contact with the patient. We then review the role of the therapist and conclude that, although treatments including guidance seem to lead to better outcomes than unguided treatments, this guidance can be mainly practical and supportive rather than explicitly therapeutic in orientation. Then we briefly describe the advantages and disadvantages of treatments for mood and anxiety disorders and comment on ways to handle comorbidity often associated with these disorders. Finally we discuss challenges when disseminating Internet interventions. In conclusion, there is now a large body of evidence suggesting that Internet interventions work. Several research questions remain open, including how Internet interventions can be blended with traditional forms of care.

A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that politics are the great divider. People who think the majority of their friends have differing opinions than their own engage less on Facebook. For those who choose to stay logged in and politically active, the research found that most tend to stick in their own circles, ignore those on the other side and become more polarized.

At the same time, the study suggests a few design changes that could allow the social media platform to bridge political differences. By displaying shared interests between friends during their prickly conversations, Facebook could help diffuse possible arguments and alleviate tension. The research also notes that increasing exposure and engagement to weak ties could make people more resilient in the face of political disagreement.

A newly published research report from MIT’s Center for Advanced
Urbanism (CAU) highlights the complexity of the issue. Produced in
collaboration with the American Institute of Architects, the document
examines an array of public health matters in eight major metropolitan
areas in the United States, and suggests a wide array of possible
remedies, from better mass transit to extensive tree-planting. The
report was principally authored by Alan Berger, a professor of landscape
architecture and urban design, along with Andrew Scott, an associate
professor of architecture; about a dozen graduate students from MIT’s
School of Architecture and Planning and researchers at CAU also worked
on the project.

A companion to the 2013 World Development Report on jobs, Gender at Work finds huge, persistent gender gaps at work around the world. This major new report advances our understanding of key trends, patterns, and constraints-and offers innovative, promising approaches to policies and programs that can level the playing field.

International development agencies invest heavily in institution
building in fragile states, including expensive interventions to support
democratic elections. Yet little evidence exists on whether elections
enhance the domestic legitimacy of governments. Using the random
assignment of an innovative election fraudreducing intervention in
Afghanistan, we find that decreasing electoral misconduct improves
multiple survey measures of attitudes toward government

The working paper series features detailed reports about individual
courses; these reports reveal differences and commonalities among
massive open online courses (MOOCs). In the coming weeks, data sets and
interactive visualization tools will also be made available.

The papers analyze an average of 20 gigabytes of data per course and
draw on interviews with faculty and course teams as well as student
metrics.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Abstract:
Rising inequality reduced income growth for the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution beginning about 1980, but that group’s consumption growth did not fall proportionally. Instead, lower saving led to increasing balance sheet fragility for the bottom 95 percent, eventually triggering the Great Recession. We decompose consumption and saving across income groups. The consumption-income ratio of the bottom 95 percent fell sharply in the recession, consistent with tighter borrowing constraints. The top 5 percent ratio rose, consistent with consumption smoothing. The inability of the bottom 95 percent to generate adequate demand helps explain the slow recovery.

Recent reports suggest that the rapid growth in youth obesity seen in the 1980s and 1990s has plateaued. We examine changes in obesity among US adolescents aged 12–17 y by socioeconomic background using data from two nationally representative health surveys, the 1988–2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys and the 2003–2011 National Survey of Children’s Health. Although the overall obesity prevalence stabilized, this trend masks a growing socioeconomic gradient: The prevalence of obesity among high-socioeconomic status adolescents has decreased in recent years, whereas the prevalence of obesity among their low-socioeconomic status peers has continued to increase. Additional analyses suggest that socioeconomic differences in the levels of physical activity, as well as differences in calorie intake, may have contributed to the growing obesity gradient.

The internet, cell phones, and social media have become key actors in
the life of many American couples— the 66% of adults who are married or
in committed relationships. Couples use technology in the little and
large moments. They negotiate over when to use it and when to abstain. A
portion of them quarrel over its use and have had hurtful experiences
caused by tech use. At the same time, some couples find that digital
tools facilitate communication and support. A majority of those in
couples maintain their own separate email and social media accounts,
though a smaller number report sharing accounts and calendars. And fully
two-thirds of couples share passwords.

Civic knowledge is critical to interpreting various policy and candidate
issues that are necessary to participating in certain political
activities, such as voting in elections or attending public
demonstrations. Various studies have examined students’ perceptions of
classroom openness, which reflects perceived levels of political
discussion supported by peers in the classrooms, to understand how this
measure relates to students’ civic behaviors. This study analyzes data
from the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, in
which approximately 134,000 students were sampled from 38 countries
across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Results from three-level
hierarchal linear modeling suggest that students’ perceptions of
classroom openness are strongly related to their civic knowledge scores.
Further analyses indicate that the relationship strength between these
two measures do not vary across students from different socioeconomic
backgrounds. These findings reaffirm the importance of curricular
approaches that emphasize political discussions in classrooms to prepare
students for active citizenship.

Abstract:
Employer-provided private shuttles have become a prominent part of the
transportation network between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. As the
Bay Area plans for transportation investments to meet sustainability
goals and accommodate future population and employment growth, an
understanding of the role of regional commuter shuttles becomes
increasingly important. This study investigates the impacts of private
shuttles on commute mode and residential location choice by conducting a
travel time comparison and surveying shuttle riders. The authors find
that the provision of shuttles and knowledge of shuttle stops influences
both commute mode and residential location choice. Shuttles are an
attractive option due to their time and cost savings compared to other
modes. However, shuttles exacerbate the jobs-housing imbalance by
enabling individuals to live farther from work. The extent to which
location of shuttle stops influences residential location choice varies
from person to person, though the vast majority of shuttle riders live
within a short walk from the nearest shuttle stop. Policies should
strike a balance between improved sustainability with existing land use
patterns and better long-term regional transportation and land use
planning.

Source: Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley

The body of this Report consists of seven sections, five of which address the Section 215 telephone records program. After this introduction and the executive summary, Part 3 describes in detail how the telephone records program works. To put the present-day operation of the program in context, Part 4 reviews its history, including its evolution from predecessor intelligence activities. An analysis of whether the telephone records program meets applicable statutory requirements follows in Part 5. Part 6 addresses the constitutional issues raised by the telephone records program under both the First and Fourth Amendments. The final section discussing the Section 215 program, Part 7, examines the potential benefits of the program, its efficacy in achieving its purposes, the impact of the program on privacy and civil liberties, and the Board’s conclusions that reforms are needed.
After considering the 215 program, the Report addresses the operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That section, Part 8, concludes by proposing an approach that, in appropriate cases, would allow the FISC judges to hear from a Special Advocate. Part 9, the final section of the Report, addresses the issue of transparency, which has been a priority of this Board since it began operations.17

Source: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, United States Government

From the Summary:
Many attempts have been made to improve the under-representation of
women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers
in the UK. Yet currently only 17 per cent of STEM professors are women.
It is astonishing that despite clear imperatives and multiple
initiatives to improve diversity in STEM, women still remain
under-represented at senior levels across every discipline. One
compelling reason to tackle this problem is that the UK economy needs
more STEM workers and we cannot meet the demand without increasing the
numbers of women in STEM.
There is no single explanation for the lack of gender diversity in STEM;
it is the result of perceptions and biases combined with the
impracticalities of combining a career with family. Scientists often
consider themselves to be objective and unbiased, yet studies have shown
that scientists are susceptible to the same biases as the rest of the
population. Therefore we have recommended that diversity and equality
training should be provided to all STEM undergraduate and postgraduate
students. It should also be mandatory for all members of recruitment and
promotion panels and line managers.

Source:Science and Technology Committee, House of Commons, Parliament, U.K.

...summarizes 100 interviews of art historians, artists, museum
curators, editors and publishers describing issues related to the use of
third-party images in creative and scholarly work. The research was
further informed by a CAA membership survey on fair use and a review of
relevant literature and legal precedents.
This issues report reveals a situation in which uncertainty about
copyright law and the availability of fair use, particularly in the
digital era, has made many practitioners risk-averse, too often
abandoning or distorting projects due to real or perceived challenges in
using copyrighted materials. The report was read by the project’s
Principal Investigators, Project Advisors, and members of the CAA Task
Force on Fair Use, its Committee on Intellectual Property, and a
Community Practices Advisory Committee. A full list of these individuals
appears as an appendix in the report.

This handbook is designed to familiarise legal practitioners who are not
specialised in the field of data protection with this area of law. It
provides an overview of the EU’s and the CoE’s applicable legal
frameworks.

Provocative new research from Germany suggests this problematic psychological process—which underpins racism, extreme nationalism, and prejudice of all sorts—kicks in somewhere around age seven.
Love for one’s own group and hatred for perceived outsiders are separate attitudes that emerge at different stages of a child’s development, according to University of Erfurt researchers David Buttelmann and Robert Böhm.

Paper: The Ontogeny of the Motivation That Underlies In-Group Bias
Abstract:

Humans demonstrate a clear bias toward members of their own group over
members of other groups in a variety of ways. It has
been argued that the motivation underlying this
in-group bias in adults may be favoritism toward one’s own group
(in-group
love), derogation of the out-group (out-group
hate), or both. Although some studies have demonstrated in-group bias
among
children and infants, nothing is known about the
underlying motivations of this bias. Using a novel game, we found that
in-group
love is already present in children of preschool
age and can motivate in-group-biased behavior across childhood. In
contrast,
out-group hate develops only after a child’s sixth
birthday and is a sufficient motivation for in-group-biased behavior
from
school age onward. These results help to better
identify the motivation that underlies in-group-biased behavior in
children.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

As an online-only, open-access journal, Science Advances will
help AAAS make more outstanding research available to researchers and
others, according to Alan I. Leshner, the association's chief executive
officer and executive publisher of Science. "Since the
mid-1990s, technology has posed new challenges for traditional scholarly
publications, but it is also creating new opportunities, particularly
for online collaboration among researchers," said Leshner, who added
that enhancing scientific communication has long been a primary goal for
AAAS. "Our new journal will expand authors' choices as well as the amount of scientific information that reaches the public."

By putting distribution and storage of papers and datasets in the hands
of their authors, Academic Torrents brings even more DIY ethos to the
world of academic publishing, and may help to solve a few problems in
the field in the bargain. While libraries and colleges disintermediate
scholarly publishing by hosting their own institutional repositories and
backing up to offsite services like LOCKSS and Portico, Academic
Torrents goes a step further, offering researchers the opportunity to
distribute the hosting of their papers and datasets to authors and
readers, offering easy access to scholarly works and simultaneously
backing them up on computers around the world.